Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Russia, which blocked a United
Nations resolution that targeted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad
yesterday, won’t allow Western nations to use the UN to validate
“regime change,” a senior official said.

“Russia has the feeling that a number of Western nations
are ready to use outside pressure, including military force, to
change the political system in certain countries,” Konstantin
Kosachyov, the head of the lower house of parliament’s foreign
affairs committee, said in a phone interview from Moscow today.
“This can’t be allowed to become the norm for international
relations just because one side has military power.”

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice called Russia’s veto a “slap in
the face,” and said the U.S. was “outraged” that the UN
Security Council had failed to address an urgent moral challenge
and a growing threat to regional peace and security.

The European-drafted resolution warned of measures within
30 days unless the Syrian regime halts its deadly seven-month
crackdown against dissenters.

After abstaining in a March vote that authorized NATO-led
military action in Libya, Russia has repeatedly criticized the
U.S. and European nations for overstepping the mandate to
protect Libyan civilians and seeking to topple Muammar Qaddafi
instead. Russia has warned against any similar effort to
overthrow Assad.

‘Absolutely Unacceptable’

“We’ve warned from the beginning that efforts to turn what
happened with the UN resolution on Libya into a model for action
by Western coalitions, NATO, are absolutely unacceptable,”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters
today in Moscow. Russia’s misgivings about the Western-backed UN
resolution on Syria were “repeatedly ignored,” giving Russia
no option but to exercise its veto, he said.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who announced Sept. 24 that
he plans to return to the Kremlin next May by swapping jobs with
his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, said in March that Western
allies were on a “crusade” in Libya, and have been
indiscriminately waging “strikes all over the country” after
pocketing billions of dollars in contracts from Qaddafi.

“The experience of the Libyan resolution taught us a lot,
when imprecise language was used by NATO countries to greatly
overstep the mandate and to use military force to change the
political system in the country and not just to protect
civilians,” Kosachyov said. “This is unacceptable and won’t be
tolerated with Syria.”

Libyan-Style Council

Opposition groups this month set up the Syrian National
Council, following the example of the umbrella group established
by rebels in Libya that is now running the country.

More than 3,600 civilians have died since protests began in
March, according to Ammar Qurabi of the National Organization
for Human Rights in Syria. About 30,000 people have been
detained and 13,000 are still being held, he said. About 700
members of the state security forces have been killed in the
uprising, according to the government.

Russia and China, two of five veto-wielding members in the
Security Council, blocked the measure that had the support of
nine nations in the 15-member body. Lebanon, India, Brazil and
South Africa abstained.

Russia has close economic and military ties with Syria,
which has been an ally since the Soviet era. It maintains a
servicing point for naval vessels in the country’s Mediterranean
port of Tartous, its only military facility outside the former
Soviet republics. Russia also has weapons contracts with Syria
valued at at least $3 billion, according to the Moscow-based
Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

Putin will take a tougher stance on foreign policy than
Medvedev, who was responsible for the abstention on the Libya
resolution, said Fyodor Lukyanov, an analyst at the Council on
Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow.

‘More Irritation’

“Putin treats the outside world with more irritation than
Medvedev as he has more experience and he thinks that in the
years when he tried to mend relations with the West in response
he got the opposite,” said Lukyanov.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy to “reset” ties with
Russia, which yielded cooperation on sanctions against Iran and
transit of military supplies to Afghanistan, may now run into
difficulties, said Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Heritage
Foundation, a Washington think-tank.

“After Putin returns, the Russian position toward the U.S.
on a number of important issues such as Syria, Iran even North
Korea may become more intractable,” he said. “The next
president of the United States, whoever it may be, will have a
tougher ride than Obama did so far.”

Even so, Igor Shuvalov, one of Putin’s two first deputies,
said yesterday his country seeks stronger ties with the U.S. and
won’t forget the “reset” in relations Washington.

Shuvalov, in a speech in Chicago, said he delivered that
message from Putin to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in a meeting
yesterday in Washington.